Ortac Resources (LON:OTC), the AIM listed mineral exploration company working on projects in Europe, has kicked off exploration work at its prospective precious and base metals licences in south-eastern Slovakia. Ortac's initial focus in the region is on the Cejkov exploration licence, where exploration will seek to verify the geological interpretation of data collected to date and assess the resource potential of the licence. In total, Ortac holds nine licences in the region, spanning 200 sq km. Cejkov lies in the southern part of the Trebišov district of Slovakia, approximately 200km east of Ortac's most advanced asset, the Kremnica precious metals project, which has a current JORC compliant resource of 1.1 million ounces of gold equivalent from its Šturec resource. Cejkov has already had several exploration campaigns conducted on it stretching back to 1966 when initial geological mapping and exploration drilling works were performed by the Czechoslovakian state and by RTZ up until the end of communism. Exploration results from the 1990s include 2.5m @ 514.20 grams per ton (g/t) of silver, 13.37% lead and 8.34% zinc from hole VS-19 and 2.9m @ 156.59 g/t of silver, 13.02% lead and 14.45% zinc from hole VS-20. Initial exploration at Cejkov will involve drilling four diamond drill holes to an average depth of 225m each, which will be completed by Geo-Technic Consulting spol. s r.o., along with 2.5km of ground based geophysics, to be carried out by KORAL, s.r.o.. Ortac said the focus at this stage was to incorporate the previous exploration results into a credible geological model that determines the potential extent of the mineralisation. It is believed that Cejkov has the potential to host high grade precious and base metal mineralisation in quartz veins hosted by intermediate to acidic volcanic sequences. Vassilios Carellas, the chief executive of Ortac, said: "The Cejkov licence has delivered extremely encouraging historical exploration results identifying it as a priority area of focus for Ortac as we commence exploration activities across our eastern Slovakian portfolio of assets. It is believed that Cejkov has the potential to host high grade precious and base metal mineralisation, and this exploration campaign will provide the company with a more substantiated reference to confirm the resource potential of this licence. In tandem with our exploration activities in eastern Slovakia, we continue to make progress at our more advanced Šturec resource in Kremnica, where we have received consistently encouraging drilling results and where a scoping study is due for publication by the end of 2011." In an interview with Stockopedia earlier this year, Carellas said that Ortac's licences in eastern Slovakia could make a useful contribution to the company's efforts to produce a combined resource of 2 million ounces of gold by early 2012. Shares in Ortac fell by 6% to 0.77p.